Yvaine

Link to new aranbrew.com site.

I love Neil Gaiman. Though you guys already know this after the presenting Neil Gaiman with a crocheted bee incident. I've read almost all his books at this stage. I do like to space out the reading of Gaiman as when I've finished them all I'll be bereft. I still have Good Omens left to read. A recent read was Stardust which I really loved, it's a great all ages story. I watched the film too and loved that as much as the book which is rare for me. I prefer books to film versions of books and also if I've read a book I know what happens so why see a film of it too? Stardust was an exception as they really captured the spirit of the book and there was some great acting too. I loved the section with Robert De Niro most of all.

Anyway all this rambling brings me to the Yvaine shawl that I mentioned briefly here. I saw this pattern when I used Ravlery's snazzy search feature to search for patterns that used about 330m of sport weight yarn. It's really useful to be able to search like that especially when knitting with handspun as you only have a limited amount of it. You can't go and get more of the yarn if you run out.  Yvaine is a versatile pattern and I thought it would suit the texture of the handspun well. Also since there is no lace or patterning I could just keep knitting until I ran out of yarn. There are supposed to be moss stitch panels on the shawl but I was lazy and just did some garter ridges instead. I have a problem with moss stitch even when knitting it in a rectangle shape I usually get it wrong. I tried a row of it but couldn't work out how to deal with moss stitch and increases so I just left it. I think it looks fine without the moss stitch. I finished it this week so that's another quick knit. At this rate though I think there might be another force at work. I think after all this time and practice I might be getting quicker at knitting. It certainly seems so. I'm pretty happy about that as I've always been a slow knitter. Even as a kid I didn't get my regulation tea cosy done in time for parents night, I think my Mum finished the last few rows for me!

I liked this pattern a lot, it taught me how triangular shawls are constructed, it's always nice when it clicks in your brain how it works and I'm pretty sure I could knit a shawl with no pattern now. This project perfectly filled the gap between finishing my Easkey wave wrap and going on holidays next Thursday. We're off to Chamonix and the Alps and I can't wait. The Yvaine shawl is blocking so hopefully I can get some nice photos of it with mountains in the background. I've picked up a nasty lung infection of some sort and that's why I'm here blogging instead of busily packing for the trip. I'm on antibiotics and strong painkillers so I'm ensconced on the sofa. I've started watching Doctor Who though so that's cheering me up. I've also made a sneaky start on a project I was saving for the holidays, the Rasta Kitty hat from Aoibhe. Maybe I'll finish that in time for wearing on my trip to the Mer de Glace.